He'll Want an (Ex-)Best Friend to Watch It With
by nicnac918
Summary: The dangers of texting, hard liquor, and unexpected revelations. (Oh, and sci-fi movies). Clex


AN: Eccentrically_Peculiar wrote a nifty little story and, because I asked nicely, I got to play with it. So here is the Lex POV companion piece to If You Give a (Fledgling) Superhero a Sci-Fi Movie, viewable on AO3.

* * *

Lex's cell rings and he reaches for it automatically, glancing at the caller ID as he goes to answer it. His finger is halfway to the accept button when the name on the screen registers. Instead he, exceedingly viciously, hits decline and returns to work, satisfied that he's managed avoid that potentially horrific turn to his day.

Really, he doesn't know where he gets off still being so optimistic.

Clark calls again twenty minutes later, then again another twenty minutes after that, then another ten minutes after that, then another five minutes after that. Lex is already coming to the decision to answer the phone if Clark tries two more times – Lex could keep this up all day, but so can Clark, so might as well get it over with while he still has plenty of time to get blindingly drunk and break some stuff and still get to bed at a reasonable hour – when his phone beeps a text alert.

It's entirely too tempting an idea to ignore it. There's nothing and nobody forcing him to read it. It would be incredibly easy to just delete the text without even looking at it. Then he could just pretend all this never happened.

Except, he would keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's no way Clark is just going to let this thing, whatever the hell it is, lie. If Lex doesn't answer his text, then, probably after sending a bunch more, Clark's bound to try something else. So if reading and sending a quick scathing response is the way to avoid getting an in-person visit, then it's worth it. Mostly.

_Lex, I've been trying to get up with you for the last hour._

Lex stifles the urge to scream and throw the phone across the room. He can just see Clark, all teenaged awkwardness and bashful grins, like he's not entirely certain of his welcome. But that boy is long gone, and it's not fair that Lex's mind and Clark's, no doubt arrogantly intended, words can draw up ghosts like this.

_That's a fact of which I'm well aware. I've been ignoring your calls for the last hour._

There. It's not even remotely subtle, but the only thing subtly had ever gotten him with Clark Kent was headaches and frustration of varying kinds.

Against all odds, Clark seems to have learned how to take a hint, because a full ten minutes pass and there is no answer from him. Maybe now Lex can put this whole infuriating incident behind him.

Except, he's _still_ waiting for the other shoe to drop. The idea of Clark actually taking a hint is patently ridiculous, and it seems much more likely that the boy is busy sulking over how rude Lex is being. Then, in another couple hours, once he'd worked himself up into a righteous indignation, Clark would storm over and rant about what a horrible Lex was, oh, and also can Lex get Clark some ridiculously extravagant thing? Frustrated, Lex grabbed his phone and sent off another text.

_What do you want, Clark? If you're going to ask a favor, quit wasting both our time, and go ask someone else._

A minute later his phone beeped in reply.

_It's nothing like that. Actually, I just wanted to tell you that I broke up with Lana. I should have never let her come between us._

For one brief moment, Lex lets himself get caught up again in a fever dream of best friends and happy families. For just a second, everything was almost just as perfect as he could ever wish it, then reality comes crashing back down around him with more force than any gunshot. Clark and Lana can break up, they could break up a thousand times; it won't stop them from being Clark-and-Lana. If the fact that the two of them had so clearly grown apart and were now completely wrong for each other couldn't keep them from each other, then it's possible nothing could (though Lex was working on a few ideas). This was just Clark's way of once again dangling hope in front of Lex, only to snatch it away and crush Lex for even daring to believe.

_After everything that happened, you're contacting me to tell me that? What makes you think I even care?_

He types the message out with hands shaking, betraying how very much he did care, in all the wrong ways.

_I don't know that you do. I just thought you should know, I guess._

_What happened? Ms. Lang didn't hold up to the ideal of her you had in your head and now that you've finally had her, you've found her wanting? That's typical of you, Clark._

It's a cruel and vicious thing to say, but there was no way Lex was going to get through this conversation unless he was cruel and vicious. It's also more than likely completely untrue. Not that Clark hadn't a built up image of Lana in his head, she was so high up on that pedestal, she'd probably break her neck if Clark ever let her try to come down. But that was just the thing, Lex couldn't conceive of anything that Lana could do to get herself dismissed from her lofty heights, any wrong that she could commit that Clark wouldn't justify for her. No doubt the reality is Clark broke up with her because he thinks he is protecting her somehow, the way he protects everyone except Lex.

_That's not it, Lex. I broke up with Lana because I think I might be gay._

Lex rereads the second sentence at least five times before he has to admit that his eyes aren't playing tricks on him, that's really what it says. But that can't be right. Clark Kent is straight and in love with Lana Lang. Far too much of Lex's self-worth and sanity relies on these two facts for them not to be true. No, something must have happened that confused Clark into thinking he's gay for some reason. So all Lex needs to do is find out what and sort it out, so Clark and Lana can go back to their little world of domestic bliss and leave him the hell alone.

_What brought about that realization, I wonder._

_I know that I'm not welcome at the mansion anymore, but I recently bought a pool table. Maybe you could come over sometime, and I could tell you over a game of pool?_

Lex stares at his cell phone for a long time, the words bouncing around in his head even after the screen has gone cold and dark. Finally, he stands up and crosses over to the bar. It's five o'clock somewhere, and even if it wasn't, he doesn't give a flying fuck at the moment. Because the only way to deal with this particular development is to get well and truly drunk.

Hours later Lex is beginning to think he should have gone with something other than scotch to drink. Hard liquor, definitely, but not scotch. Vodka, maybe. Yeah, vodka, that's a good 'don't fuck with me' kind of drink. Appropriate, since that's what a good part of him is convinced Clark is doing, fucking with him. Somehow, Clark had managed to put together Lex's deepest, if not his darkest, secret and now is using it to fuck with Lex's head. Granted, Clark usually tends more toward the thoughtless, self-righteous cruelty than this kind of deliberately mean bullying tactic, but it still seems just as likely as the alternative where Clark Kent is actually _gay_ and _hitting on him_.

Unfortunately, Lex is not drinking vodka, so he can't quite seem to work himself into a fury about Clark fucking with him. He's drinking scotch, which makes him melancholy and mellow and maudlin and mopey and a bunch of other words that probably also begin with an 'm,' so instead he's just thinking about Clark fucking him.

Now, by itself, that wouldn't be such a horrible thing. As much as he tries to deny and repress it after all, fucking Clark – or Clark fucking him; really, if something as improbable as that were to ever actually happen, he wouldn't be able to find it in him to be too picky about the exact mechanics of it – is something he thinks about dead sober occasionally (all the time). The horribleness comes from the way his mind is straying from the particular glory that is Clark's ass as he's bent over the pool table to make a shot to way he looks after he turns around when the shot it made: green eyes sparkling with laughter and a smile that's blinding in its brightness. Lex can just feel the warmth and the friendship and the love and the feeling like, maybe just for once his in his pathetic life, he was actually enough for someone just the way he is. And would it really be so bad if Lex just had this one thing, this one tiny, little (huge, enormous, amazing, perfect, oh God, please, he'd do _anything_) thing for himself?

Lex gets up and walks back over to his desk where he left his cell phone. He blames his slight unsteadiness in crossing the room on the alcohol, and never mind that being drunk has never a day in his life made him clumsy before. He picks the phone up and starts typing out a response to Clark's question from forever ago. It's a beautifully crafted essay of a text, and when he does an editing read-through – despite popular opinion, Lex quite firmly does not believe that drunkenness is an excuse for poor grammar – he hates himself a little bit for it. He very deliberately presses down on the delete button, watching as the letters and words slowly disappear, and hates himself a little more.

As the cursor approaches the beginning of the message, he lifts his finger just a bit too soon, and is left with a single word staring innocently up at him. He stares back at the word for a long time, and thinks about destiny and fate, about making your own choices, and about reading far too much into coincidences. He sighs, adds a question mark, and hits send.

_When?_


End file.
